ERIC EJ902675: Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom: Setting LGBTQ Issues within Wider Frameworks for Preservice Educators

2010·0.13 MB·English

by  ERIC

IMssicuhease iln S Taedaocwhesrk iEducation, Fall 2010 53
Core Values
and the Identity-Supportive Classroom:
Setting LGBTQ Issues
within Wider Frameworks for Preservice Educators
Michael Sadowski
Bard College
Consider your core values as an educator, the ideas that inspired you
to become a teacher. With these deeply held beliefs in the background,
now complete this sentence: “I believe that all students in a public
school have a right to __________________.”
Whenever I introduce a new group of teacher education students or
other preservice educators to the research about lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth and schooling-related issues, I
begin with this prompt. I ask students to write privately for a few min-
utes and then to share some of their ideas aloud while I collect them on
the board. Because, in many cases, I have asked students to complete
some reading about LGBTQ issues prior to the class, some of the rights
that they identify are those that one might expect to hear directly after
students have read this material, including “a safe learning environ-
ment,” “freedom from bullying and harassment,” and “acceptance and
respect at school.” Often, however, students are able to think beyond
the content of the reading and to come up with a broad spectrum of ide-
als to which they believe all students are entitled and that drive their
most fundamental motivations to pursue careers in education. These
ideals include “opportunities to develop their own unique talents and
Michael Sadowski is an assistant professor in the Master of Arts in
Teaching Program at Bard College, New York City and Annandale-on-
Hudson, New York. His e-mail address is: [email protected]
Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 2010
54 Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom
skills,” “adequate resources to help them learn,” and “supportive, en-
couraging teachers.” Some students even offer such ideals as “proper
nutrition.”
This list of rights serves (literally) as a backdrop for a presentation
and discussion of current data about the school experiences of LGBTQ
students and about the risks that these youth face both in and out of
school. If my classroom is equipped with a projection screen, I use the
screen both to conceal the list of rights that students have generated
and to display slides that highlight recent key data from two sources.
We begin with the most recent data from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight
Education Network (GLSEN) School Climate Survey (Kosciw, Diaz, &
Greytak, 2008).
Although numerous articles about school-related risks affecting
LGBTQ youth have appeared in peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Chesir-
Teran & Hughes, 2009; Pilkington & Hershberger, 2002), none of these
addresses the breadth of issues that the GLSEN survey addresses, in-
cluding anti-LGBTQ language; verbal harassment; physical attacks; the
responses of teachers to anti-LGBTQ language and harassment; LGBTQ
representation (or lack thereof) in school curricula; the relationship be-
tween victimization and school performance; and the specific experiences
of lesbian and bisexual girls, transgender youth, and LGBTQ youth of
color. Moreover, the consistency of GLSEN’s findings over multiple, bi-
ennial administrations of the School Climate Survey lends credibility to
its data, which, although not based on random sampling, represent the
perceptions of more than 6,000 students in grades 6 through 12 (mostly
LGBT-identifying) from across the country.1
Data from the GLSEN School Climate Survey
Findings from the GLSEN survey about anti-LGBTQ language and
harassment that I discuss with preservice educators include at least five
key statistics:
• 9 out of 10 students that GLSEN surveyed indicated that, at school,
they hear the term “that’s so gay” or a variant of it either “frequently”
or “often.”
• Over 70% noted that, at school, they hear other homophobic language
(e.g., faggot, dyke, homo) either “frequently” or “often” at school.
• 44% stated that most of their peers use homophobic language.
• Collectively, over 80% said that they are “extremely” (25%), “pretty
much” (30%), or “a little” (29%) “bothered or distressed as a result of
hearing words such as ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ used in a derogatory way.”
Issues in Teacher Education
Michael Sadowski 55
• 68% indicated they have been verbally harassed at school either “fre-
quently,” “often,” or “sometimes” in the past year, and 29% indicated
that they have been physically harassed. (Kosciw et al., 2008)
Another central focus of our discussion involves the responses of
teachers to homophobic language, harassment, and violence. Although
some of GLSEN’s findings point to the positive difference that support-
ive teachers and other school staff make in the lives of many LGBTQ
students, data from the survey also suggest that some teachers fail to
provide a safe learning environment and may even contribute to the
victimization of LGBTQ students.
In particular, 38.6% of the students that GLSEN surveyed indicated
their teachers never intervene when they hear students use homopho-
bic language, and another 44% indicated that teachers intervene only
“sometimes.” Additionally, 5% noted that they “frequently” or “often”
hear teachers and other school staff make homophobic remarks them-
selves, and another 18% said that they “sometimes” hear this kind of
language from school adults. Further, among students who had been
harassed, over 60% indicated that they never reported it to school staff,
and the most frequently cited reason was that they believed that such
reporting would be ineffective (Kosciw et al., 2008).
Finally, our slide-based discussion focuses on some of the risks, both
academic and otherwise, that LGBTQ youth face as a result of being
victimized or attending hostile school climates. I end with data from
the most recent Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (MYRBS),
which is based on questionnaire responses from more than 3,000 students
in randomly selected high schools across the state. (Even though the
teacher education program in which I am currently working is based in
New York, I use MYRBS data because Massachusetts is one of only a
few states that, in its Youth Risk Behavior Survey, includes questions
about self-identified sexual orientation and/or same-sex sexual activity
and has been disaggregating youth risk data by sexual orientation for
more than a decade.)
Consistently, students are shocked by the MYRBS statistics showing
that almost 30% of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth state that they have
attempted suicide, a rate more than four times greater than that of their
heterosexual peers (29.1% vs. 6.4%). The students also are surprised
by data showing that lesbian, gay, and bisexual students (the survey
does not include any items to determine transgender identity) are more
than three times as likely as their heterosexual peers (13.3% vs. 4.2%)
to skip school because they feel unsafe as well as more than four times
as likely (18.7% vs. 4.5%) to have been threatened with or injured by a
weapon at school (Massachusetts Department of Education, 2008).2
Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 2010
56 Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom
At this point in the session, we turn off the slides, raise the screen,
and reveal again the list that we generated at the beginning of the class.
(I admit here that the somewhat dramatic effect of this transition is a
deliberate attention-getting strategy.) As one might predict, students are
immediately struck by the mismatch between the rights that they identi-
fied as belonging to all students, based on what they consider their core
values as educators, and the experiences of LGBTQ youth in U.S. schools,
as depicted in the GLSEN survey results and the MYRBS data.
Our discussion then continues with my asking the students, “Which
of the rights that we articulated as belonging to all students are violated
or compromised for LGBTQ students, assuming that the GLSEN and
MYRBS data accurately reflect their experiences?” Here, the connections
(or, perhaps more accurately, disconnections) that students identify be-
tween their list and the data usually begin with such rights as to feel safe
at school and to attend school free from harassment and bullying. Probing
more deeply, however, students are often able to point to ways in which
a broader spectrum of generally agreed-upon student rights are violated
on a regular basis based on what the GLSEN and/or MYRBS data show.
These insights vary from class to class, but in recent sessions, participants
have focused on the rights of students in at least four areas.
The first area is the right to develop their own unique skills as learn-
ers, a right that is compromised if LGBTQ students skip classes or school
because they feel unsafe or silenced in classes in which the central aspects
of their identities are not represented. The second is the right to be sup-
ported and encouraged by teachers, some of whom, the data show, fail to
address the needs of LGBTQ youth adequately and, in some cases, may
even harbor and act upon homophobic attitudes themselves.
The third area is the right to participate in extracurricular activities
that expand their horizons, as some LGBTQ students may believe that
they would not be welcome in certain school athletic or extracurricular
activities and because many schools still do not have gay-straight alli-
ances. The fourth area, which was noted above, is the right to adequate
nutrition, which some of my students have convincingly argued could
be jeopardized if LGBTQ students feel unsafe in the school cafeteria,
which, along with hallways, are among the most common locations for
anti-LGBTQ harassment to occur (Bochenek & Brown, 2001).
The Two Graduate School Contexts
Notably, the contexts in which I have taught preservice educators
about LGBTQ issues have been factors affecting the extent to which they
have been receptive to the idea of these issues being addressed openly in
Issues in Teacher Education
Michael Sadowski 57
K-12 schools. My first experiences in teaching this material took place
at the Harvard Graduate School of Education between 2003 and 2006.3
Both in the school’s Teacher Education Program (made up of graduate
students seeking master’s degrees and state certification to teach at the
middle and high school levels) and in the School Leadership Program
(for preservice administrators and other school leaders), I taught stand-
alone sessions for several years, the first half of which followed a format
similar to the one that I described above, with the second half focused on
case studies in which students worked in small groups to problem-solve
a situation related to homophobia in a school context. These case studies,
some of which were drawn from the work of educator Michael Kozuch,
involve such issues as opposition to efforts to start a gay-straight alliance,
a teacher being targeted with homophobic language, and homophobia in
a school sports context. With the slide presentation in the background,
students were called upon to discuss how they would address the case as
educators and how they might use arguments about core values to defend
their solution to potential opponents.
Because these groups at Harvard were relatively large (some in-
cluded as many as 100 students), when I first started conducting the
workshops, I expected to encounter at least a few participants in each
session who might express objections to addressing LGBTQ issues openly
in a K-12 context. Yet, in all these sessions, which involved upwards
of 400 students over several years, no student ever raised such objec-
tions. Of course, there are several possible reasons why this might have
been the case. If students with these sorts of objections were, in fact, in
any of the sessions, they were most likely in the minority at Harvard’s
Graduate School of Education and may, therefore, have felt unsafe
(somewhat ironically, given what the GLSEN and MYRBS data show
about LGBTQ youths’ feeling unsafe at school) voicing these opinions
to their peers. I would also like to think, however, that the framing of
the issue around core values and widely agreed-upon student rights led
at least some students to rethink their stance when the disturbing data
on issues affecting LGBTQ youth were presented in this way.
Since 2005, I have been a core faculty member in the Master of Arts
in Teaching Program at Bard College (another secondary teacher educa-
tion program that likely attracts a disproportionately liberal student
body). At Bard, I use my lesson juxtaposing core values and universal
student rights, on the one hand, with the GLSEN and MYRBS data,
on the other, in the context of a ten-week course titled “Identity, Cul-
ture, and the Classroom.” This course has afforded me an even broader
framework within which to discuss the rights of all students and the
responsibilities of teachers with regard to LGBTQ youth.
Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 2010
58 Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom
The course begins with foundational theories about identity develop-
ment in adolescence, particularly those of Erik Erikson who, despite what
some might characterize as homophobia in some of his writing, was unde-
niably a pioneer in the field of child and adolescent psychology. Working
from Erikson’s theories about adolescence representing a particular time
of “crisis” (or turning point) for the development of identity, we discuss
how adolescents grapple, primarily unconsciously, with questions of self-
definition and their place in the world. In his classic text Identity: Youth
and Crisis, Erikson (1968) calls identity formation “a process ‘located’
in the core of the individual and yet also in the core of his communal
culture” (p. 22, italics in original). In this light, we consider the crucial
role that “cultures” within schools play in adolescents’ development of a
healthy or unhealthy sense of self, and how teachers play a central role
in establishing the culture of their classrooms and of the school culture
as a whole. We discuss the responsibility of teachers to serve not only as
deliverers of course content but also as what Nakkula and Toshalis (2006)
have called “applied developmentalists,” adults entrusted with ensuring
that young people follow positive developmental trajectories that allow
them to learn and achieve to their fullest potential.
This groundwork-setting conversation about identity theory provides
an additional backdrop for the discussion of LGBTQ issues, which takes
place several weeks later in the context of discussions about other identity-
related issues such as those associated with race, gender, ethnicity, social
class, ability/disability, and language. Many of the readings about these
issues come from my edited book, Adolescents at School: Perspectives on
Youth, Identity, and Education (2008a), as well as the work of authors such
as Ferguson (2000), Fordham and Ogbu (1986), Gilligan (1996), Tatum
(1997), and others. The exploration of LGBTQ issues in classrooms and
schools thus takes place amid a larger conversation about how schools
provide or fail to provide opportunities for students from various histori-
cally marginalized groups to develop positive identities as learners.
Students’ Responses to Studying LGBTQ Issues
As a final project for “Identity, Culture, and the Classroom,” students
are called upon to draft either a “plan of practice” or a statement of their
“principles of practice,” articulating how they envision themselves work-
ing to creating learning environments, both within their classrooms and
in the larger school communities in which they will work, that support
the positive development of students both as learners and as people.
(These final projects have been in the form of papers for the past five
years, but in 2010, I have also begun offering a presentation option.)
Issues in Teacher Education
Michael Sadowski 59
Students are required to draw on at least three bodies of literature for
these final projects (e.g., research and/or theory about ethnicity, gender,
and race), focusing on how these inform the ways that they conceive of
their responsibilities as teachers.
Over the past five years, many students have chosen to cite the
GLSEN and/or MYRBS data in their final projects and to argue for the
rights of all students to a supportive learning environment. Other class
participants have drawn on broader theories of identity to illustrate
why focused work around LGBTQ issues will be an essential aspect of
their practice as professional educators.4 In the following excerpts, two
students, one being certified to teach history and the other preparing
to teach mathematics, discuss their plans to incorporate LGBTQ issues
into their course curricula based on these principles:
Along with Black history and women’s history, I feel it is especially
important (due to the highly common neglect of this subject) to include
the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people into my cur-
riculum . . . Students of varying sexual orientations are often completely
neglected from history courses, which may make them feel even more
marginalized and outside the school community than they already feel. I
plan on studying the Stonewall riots in my classroom and possibly using
excerpts from a book titled Gay New York by George Chauncey (1994) to
demonstrate the impact that gay culture and movements have had on
our society. There is also a lot of gay history that dates back to ancient
Greek and Roman times, which is often neglected as well. I want all of
my students, regardless of race, sexual orientation, and gender, to un-
derstand that the group(s) they identify with did have a place in history,
and they shouldn’t ever feel like they are alone or unimportant.
From the [GLSEN] School Climate Survey, we see a marked difference
between schools with and without inclusive curricula. In schools with
no inclusive curriculum, 63.1% of respondents reported feeling unsafe
because of their sexual orientation, as opposed to 44.8% of respondents
from schools with an inclusive curriculum. Considering my subject
area is math, how can I incorporate LGBTQ themes into the class-
room? If we talk about Turing machines in computer science, we will
undoubtedly discuss British mathematician Alan Turing, a gay man
whose code breaking helped the British immeasurably in WWII. Also,
in story problems, rather than using the nuclear definition of family,
I can refer to the many different kinds of families there are in reality.
This is an example of how I can make class relevant for students who
are not part of a nuclear family.
Other students have discussed the need for teachers not only to
create inclusive curricula but also to ensure that LGBTQ students are
represented and supported in the larger school community:
Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 2010
60 Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom
As an educator, our responsibilities extend beyond simply teaching our
discipline. In all areas, it is crucial that we are open to developing car-
ing, trusting relationships with our students. As evidenced earlier in
discussing the lack of staff support for LGBT students, it is abundantly
clear that these relationships are missing . . . [I]t will be one of my top
priorities that I am available to establish these relationships with my
students. If the school does not already have a gay-straight student
alliance (GSA), it would be my first priority to speak to the principal
about beginning one. Students have identified that these organizations
provide them a place where they can be themselves and develop sup-
portive relationships (GLSEN, 2008).
It is not only in my role in a GSA or as an ally to the students that I
will work on breaking down these harmful barriers. It is also my role as
an educator that can reinforce positive experiences. History is a great
discipline to work with in this context because there truly is great deal of
flexibility. In some aspects, history is seen as the ability to recite names
and dates, but in reality it is the repetition of themes and ideas that is
what we strive to teach. We teach about the Holocaust with attention
to the discrimination against Jews. We teach about slavery and the
lasting legacy of racism. We teach about feminism and sexism across
the board. It is my belief that the LGBT community should have an
equal place within this narrative. When teaching about the Progressive
Era, for example, I would include a parallel between the struggle for
rights of African Americans, women, and Native Americans and the
struggle the gay community faces today. In a civics class, the rights of
the state as compared to federal powers could very easily be related to
the gay marriage debate in the United States today.
Students in my classes who are LGBTQ themselves have sometimes
focused on the role that they might play as role models and mentors, draw-
ing both on research on the lack of representation of openly LGBTQ people
in schools (Bochenek & Brown, 2001; Sadowski, 2008b) and the value of
mentoring for students in supporting positive development and orientation
toward the future (Rhodes, Davis, Prescott, & Spencer, 2007). Additionally,
because attempts to address LGBTQ issues in middle and high schools can
often be met with opposition from administrators, school boards, and com-
munity members on religious and/or political grounds, I add a component
to the “plan of practice/principles of practice” assignment, asking students
to consider the potential obstacles that they might encounter when putting
their ideas into practice in a real-world school context and when articulat-
ing how they might argue for them in the face of such opposition. As one
student recently explained in her “plan of practice”:
Some parents or other groups may resist including LGBTQ issues in the
curriculum. But if educators ignore certain students and certain issues
Issues in Teacher Education
Michael Sadowski 61
because celebrating their interests, needs, or backgrounds is too contro-
versial or too difficult, then school would never become a place for social
reform. Teachers can never help make their students well-rounded, car-
ing people if they don’t do everything in their power to demonstrate that
they themselves are caring and compassionate enough to embrace the
backgrounds of all their students, even if it is challenged by others.
Some Caveats
I believe that the “plans of practice” and “principles of practice” that
students articulate in their final papers for “Identity, Culture, and the
Classroom” represent their sincere intentions to creative inclusive class-
rooms, curricula, and school communities. I recognize, however, that the
extent to which these intentions are realized once students are working
in the real world of K-12 schooling, with its competing political agendas
and where school boards and administrators often discourage teachers
from raising controversial issues, quite likely varies from graduate to
graduate. Based on admittedly anecdotal evidence, I can state that at
least some teachers who completed the teacher education programs at
Harvard and at Bard are indeed applying the principles that they articu-
lated as graduate students. Since I have begun teaching about LGBTQ
issues, I have heard from numerous students, sometimes years later,
who were seeking additional advice on starting a gay-straight alliance
or incorporating LGBTQ issues into their curricula.
In my future work, I intend to investigate the extent to which the
framing of LGBTQ issues within the context of larger concepts such as
core values, student rights, and identity development influences how
inservice teachers implement and/or argue for positive change. Many
schools today are driven by mission statements, which can often be
seen prominently displayed in a hallway or enshrined in a glass case
in the school lobby. These statements often refer to core values, student
rights, and overarching goals (e.g., the school’s mission to provide a
safe and challenging learning environment, the right of all students to
a high-quality education, the school’s objective to develop the unique
skills and talents of every learner). Educators empowered with strong
arguments about the needs of LGBTQ students, framed within these
larger ideals, are best prepared to articulate to their colleagues why the
inclusion of LGBTQ issues, despite any possible controversy, is within
their fundamental obligation as educators and is in keeping with the
broader mission of any school community.
Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 2010
62 Core Values and the Identity-Supportive Classroom
Notes
1 Data for the 2009 GLSEN School Climate Survey had not yet been released
when this article was written.
2 In this context, the author also makes sure to emphasize that many LGBTQ
youth are resilient and thriving and that 70% of those surveyed for the MYRBS
did not report a suicide attempt.
3 For three years, the author also taught a six-week course at the Harvard
Graduate School of Education titled “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
Issues in K-12 Education.” The author did not include the work of this course in
this article because the students were a self-selected population made up not only
of preservice teachers but also of various other students enrolled at Harvard.
4 Quotations from student papers written for “Identity, Culture, and the
Classroom” are cited with permission of the authors. Because students wrote these
papers without the intent to publish, the author has omitted their names here.
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Issues in Teacher Education